Who runs our institution, and what are their principles? In some respects this question could be answered with a simple fact check exercise. A quick search on google will reveal who the president of UAL is, and potentially the names of course leaders, visiting lecturers, technicians, librarians etc.
But providing information about the principles and teaching pedagogy of those that make up the staff of the universities is a lot harder to evidence, and when you think about it, this is where the truth lies with regards to what sort of learning environment a student is entering. Is it one of love? Should it be? Do those in charge value love as a necessary part of education? Is it visible in the teaching practice of staff and policies of the universities, and if so what does love look like in a pedagogical scenario? How does it change a student’s experience of learning?
Quite simply,
how is it felt?
I ask these questions as a result of a conversation I had with my friend Franca. I was explaining what I’d been studying on the PGCert (Franca is a fellow educator and theatre performance artist, and her interest was piqued when I told her I was studying again) and I went into detail about the workshop we covered on love, care and belonging. Franca knows how interested I am in social justice work, and I was explaining how interesting it is to consider the use of love in a social justice and institutional context when the idea of ‘the institution’ can be intimidating, impenetrable and sometimes quite abstract.
In the context of learning institutions, in recent months there’s been a stampede of universities rushing to release anti racist statements in support of the BLM movement that reignited discussions about the need to address the persistent racism inflicted upon the lives of black people. As someone who has spent eight years in higher education as an ethnic minority student, I am very aware that public declarations of commitment to addressing racism within an institution rarely translate into changes that directly improve the experience of the student cohort at large let alone those who are BAME. So, as I was wondering about all this to my friend, I started to think about the word institution, and how it is used to define so many different organised structures. If I had to describe the word as a picture I’d probably end up drawing some sort of building.
A monolithic entity.
A structure crystalized and formed as an unequivocal whole.
But really, the whole that I speak of here is made up of several moving parts, specifically, individuals who are from different backgrounds, who have different thoughts and experiences, who believe different things, and who have different interests and understandings of how to teach. This means that when the ‘institution’ releases a statement declaring a commitment to anti racism, it is in fact the people who make up the body of the institution who are committing to that promise. This is a simple deduction, yes, but at its essence it’s truly mind boggling, because this wish for an anti racist university to succeed requires each individual who passes through the university to be responsible for actively participating in the act of personally and collectively decolonising themselves, in service of a little thing called
love.
Described by feminists as ‘The Ethics of Care’ it means developing a self that is connected to others and wants to remain connected (and through this connection) developing an understanding of the injustices that others suffer. It is not possible to demonstrate love for another if you aren’t interested in them being treated justly/receiving justice, as ‘Justice is an extension of caring, ergo caring about and caring for.’ (Starting at Home Book). The ethics of care believes that with the hard work of acknowledging and addressing biases, and developing an open and receptive relationship with others, we are able to develop self reflection. This is a key component in enacting love as it requires vulnerability and introspection, providing us with the opportunity to understand and correct power inequities and oppression.
An example of how failing to engage with these activities can have a harmful effect on students occurred during my tutorial group discussion. A fellow student provided a personal anecdote about his experience of assessment, and how “Students from Asia often fell through the assessment criteria cracks as they were reviewed from a Western perspective.” The student went on to explain that when he first started teaching years ago, his method of marking wasn’t able to fairly assess work by international or BAME students if the student’s work didn’t adhere to the brief in a way that he understood/was comparable to their fellow classmates. Looking back he said that he could see that he’d marked students down simply because he didn’t understand their work, and he realises that this was a result of the criteria he was using to assess work, which was inherently biased.
It was encouraging to see how this student had started to engage with the principles of ‘The Ethics of Care’ by critiquing his own teaching practice, and it was evident that he’d been able to reflect on the unconscious bias he had as a lecturer, and the negative effect this had on his ability to mark all of his students’ work fairly. These considerations tied in with another comment he made. He explained that his experience of BAME students having to contextualise their practice before their work is even looked at or discussed is evidence that when some students share their work with lecturers they feel that they, “Can’t freely associate because there’s a lack of mutual understanding.”
The above quote is taken from Claudia Rankine’s book “Just Us”, and although it focuses on education systems in America, it succinctly illustrates the issue of implicit bias and how it affects the way teachers engage with BAME students. Participating in a pedagogy that values love requires the constant self evaluation of how we engage with our students as teachers, taking responsibility for embedding within ourselves a willingness to learn and change behaviors that are harmful and racist, so that we aren’t inhibiting and limiting the experiences that our students have under our tutelage. This may mean having to do research into artists that we aren’t familiar with in order to understand references that students make in their work, reading books by poets, philosophers, theorists etc. who aren’t male/white/heteorsexual and included in the Western canon. In my case, I don’t know a lot about Asian practitioners, be they artists, writers, film makers etc. so after I realised that a lot of the international students are Asian I decided to commit myself to researching artists and reading works by Asian writers to diversify my references and teaching resources. Or, as in the case of the fellow PGCert student who revealed problems with how he used to assess students’ work, it sometimes requires admitting to mistakes and conditioning we may have about the way students should respond to a brief.
Whatever work it is that needs to be done, when we consider the question of how to attend to our students’ needs as tutors it can seem overwhelming. Yet, I can’t help but look at it as a MASSIVE opportunity! (As you can see, Elmo agrees with me.)
As mentioned earlier, no two people are alike, we’re all very different and this means that we differ in our ethical decision making. According to ‘The Ethics of Care’ the way men understand and observe moralistic issues is based on rights, rules and justice, but it often excludes context, the intersectionality of individuals, the lived experience or background of an individual and how these things affect our ability to understand what could be classified as ‘objective rules’. It also means adhering to a policy that shows a lack of compassion and empathy with others, based on the principle that we start as individual moral agents, separate from others, that learn how to obey the principles of morality. Whereas “Women’s morality is partly, if not more shaped by responsibility and care,” Carol Gilligan. However, both men and women can reconsider how they make moral judgements and decisions, using ‘The Ethics of Care’ to develop a teaching practice that is demonstrative of love, care and belonging.
As tutors we can engage in self reflection, be open to/ask for feedback and objectively listen to the viewpoints of others. We can develop our understanding of biases, listening to those who experience it, being open to their suggestions of how to improve our teaching practice. Provide resources/lesson plans/material that’s relevant to the students, making sure what is shared doesn’t subjugate, stereotype or exclude. Listen attentively and respond thoughtfully and appropriately. Create a clear explanation of what behaviour is acceptable/unacceptable for participants that attend classes….the list is potentially endless, but the suggestions made above demonstrate how much can be done to forge learning spaces that emphasise the important presence of care, belonging and love within the university.
I then started to think about systems that prioritise and assess learning on a different basis. The popularised system by which students’ experience of university is assessed is TEF. Universities are graded on: student satisfaction with teaching on the course, academic support, assessment and feedback, retention and employment or further study/highly skilled employment six months after graduating. The highest honour a university can achieve through this system is a Gold Award, which accomplishes two things: the potential to increase student fees and an elevation of status for the university. This system is indicative of the neoliberal capitalist society we live in. In our first lecture James Wisdom shared information that ‘A UK citizen with a degree will earn 37% more over a lifetime than someone who left school with upper secondary qualifications.’ This information is a demonstration of how statistics like these bolster the government’s interest in education as a way to boost the economy, but it raises questions about whether the focus on higher education strengthening the capital of a country is appropriate, when several students today contend with mental health issues, the effects of immigration laws, environmentalism and all the other isms there are. Should universities also be judged on the impact they have on the emotional, spiritual and mental wellbeing of its students?
Through the examples provided in this writing I would suggest that focusing on creating a pedagogy of love as a basis for all learning institutions is a criteria that would root universities in an educational system that both nurtures the student and teacher, develops inclusive policies and enables individuals to develop as mature and emphatic human beings. In “All About Love” Bell Hooks explains that the parameters within which it’s safe to publicly declare a belief in the power of love as a motivation and necessary part of social justice, empathy, self development, and a way to resolve a lot of the issues we contend with today (sexism, environmentalism, racism, the immigration crisis, poverty etc.) are limiting, ‘Nowadays the most popular messages are those that declare the meaninglessness of love, it’s irrelevance’. She goes on to reference Harold Kushner who writes: “I am afraid that we may be raising a generation of young people who will grow up afraid to love…I am afraid that they will grow up looking for intimacy without risk, for pleasure without significant emotional investment. They will be so fearful of the pain of disappointment that they will forego the possibilities of love and joy.”
The fear of being judged and ridiculed for believing in the idealism of love can cripple people into believing that it is an ineffective tool in creating change. Yet the societal deficit of love we experience is proof that something needs to be done to change the course we are on. We need to be willing to have difficult conversations with others and ourselves about issues regarding race, gender, class, disability, sexuality etc. if we want to make progress as a society, and within the classroom.
So, I intend to use my position as an associate lecturer to teach with an awareness of my positionality and how it relates to the students I’m talking to. I will be conscious of how I use language as a tool; giving positive affirmations and using inclusive and relevant language. I’ll organise specific days for one to one sessions, where discussions can be about anything including mental health needs, essays, work, the latest movie in the MARVEL franchise (I meant it when I said they can talk about anything) in an attempt to develop a dramatic and meaningful relationship with my students.
These are just a few examples, amongst the ones provided earlier, on the small yet significant steps I’m taking to be an active and responsible teacher, that prioritises love above all else, in the hope that it improves the experience of the students that I teach.